Elaine Lustig Cohen Designed Elegant Signage and Book Covers

Influenced by European avant-garde, she later turned to painting

When her first husband died in 1955, the 28-year-old Elaine Lustig suddenly found herself with a high-profile assignment: creating signage and other embellishments for the Seagram building on Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Philip Johnson.